Two more days, terrible days for them both, went by. To Aliette it seemed as though all her courage, all her clear-visioning mentality, had ebbed away. Everything terrified her; but most of all the thought of precipitating crisis by telling Ronnie the truth.

Vainly he argued with her, pleaded with her. Vainly he assured her that it was their duty to risk this last maddest hazard of the gamble; that to jeopardize his newly-won success mattered not at all; that "social ruin" existed only in Sir Peter's imagination; that not even "social ruin" should deter them from achieving his mother's main object; that there was only the one way of achieving that object; and that, matrimony once achieved, they would be free to enjoy the riches Julia Cavendish had left them--in some other country if scandal drove them from their own. To all his arguments, Aliette had but one reply: the same reply she had made to him long and long ago in his chambers in Jermyn Street: "Don't try to hurry me, Ronnie. You must give me time----"

She hardly knew why she was playing for time. She hardly knew which she could face best; suspense or certainty. She wanted, more than anything, to run away. Her terrors, vague at first, grew definite. She saw Ronnie's career smashed, Ronnie's child born out of wedlock. She saw them both hounded from England. She asked herself, terror-stricken, if it were better that the child should be born out of wedlock than born in scandal. She told herself that wedlock, won as her lover pleaded with her to win it, at the price of notoriety and exile, would be the blacker stigma.

"We can go abroad," he said. How would that help the unborn? Hide themselves wheresoever they might, their world would not forget. If she gave way to Ronnie, then--for at least a generation--men and women of their own class would remember, when they spoke of Julia Cavendish's grandchild, how Julia Cavendish's son had ruined his career for the sake of Hector Brunton's wife.

And yet, what else was there to do but yield to Ronnie's wishes? And yet, even yielding, what would be gained? The divorce, if divorce came, would come too late. Or would it be just in time? She didn't know. She couldn't think. She could only reproach herself bitterly for the pride which had so long prevented her from seeking out Hector.

But Julia, Aliette could not reproach. Even though Julia had carried her vendetta beyond the grave, it was--Aliette knew--no selfish vendetta. All that Ronnie's mother had tried to achieve had been planned selflessly, out of love for them, and not out of hate for Hector.

If only Julia were alive! If only her mother had been such as Julia! If only she could have taken train to Clyst Fullerford! If only she could lay the legal issue before the legal wisdom of Andrew! For there must be (did not intuition warn her?), there was (had not Sir Peter almost said so?) some way, legal or illegal, out of this coil, some method by which all four of them--she, Ronnie, Ronnie's child, Hector--could be saved.

Always, her distraught mind grew more lenient toward Hector. Ronnie, her love and loyalty could console even for his lost career. The child (that fear also she knew) might never be born. But Hector her love could not console. He (had not Sir Peter said so?) would suffer as much as they. He might have to leave the bar. Was that fair? Was anything fair?